New Year's in Nassau

So after enjoying all the family for Christmas, we come to New Year's. I had to work over Christmas, but we had a couple of days off at New Year's so we decided to take a quick family trip to the Bahamas. This is all in the philosophy of live every day like it's Christmas...or your last day to live if you want to be morbid about it. Before we left, I spotted this wacky sky with a bit of rainbow in the middle, if you can spot it.


Here's a better shot...


So we arrived on New Year's eve to 80 degree weather.


The water was more like 70 degrees, and I tried to capture how pretty it was...


but failed at that I think...


Oh well, it's pretty water.


We made last-minute dinner reservations at a restaurant that was having a gala celebration that included champagne, dinner, and party favors. I look more like my Dad smoking a cigarette than a woman enjoying New Year's eve.


We had 2 jaunty hats and 2 of the feather head-things...


Drew snagged the second hat, so Lucas declined any adornments.


But we did have a great time trying to snap pics of the dresses and shoes that were in attendance, while trying to look like we were just taking pictures of each other.


This is just half of the outside setup - the other half was a huge dance floor with DJ - WHAT?!!! Now you know why this was such a great New Year's eve for me! We made some friends from Brazil (a woman named Mel whose parents had just bought a house in Nassau, and her somewhat elderly mother never left the dance floor), danced till midnight (yes, everyone danced, though Lucas may have just loitered around the edge of the dance floor) then watched the fireworks at Atlantis, which was across the water from us.

The next day, we went on a boat to go paddleboarding and snorkeling. Sadly, I don't have any of the paddleboarding pics, but here's the pretty water again...


And here we are after snorkeling in the 70 degree water. Drew and I figured it's just like the Arctic Enema of Tough Mudder, but it did make me go numb after a few minutes. And for some reason, my hair always turns into Medusa's snakes after I've been in the water. Not pretty!


Here IS a pretty picture that Lucas took of his delicious hotdog eaten after paddleboarding in this quiet little cove (where the "local pharmaceutical rep" lives, by the way, and yes, that's a euphemism).

So on our last full day, we decided to reconnoiter Atlantis, which was a 10-minute walk from our joint. This is a beautiful bougainvillea bush outside our door, but if you look close you'll discover they recently re-roofed the place, because those are nails from a nailgun in there!


You can walk around a bit of Atlantis without paying anything, but we were stopped before the main lobby at lunch, so we wandered around the marina then went back to our condo for sandwiches. Luckily, they open it up at 6 PM so everyone can see the marine habitat for free (normally a $45 value - thanks for that tip, TripAdvisor!), so we went back after dinner to do that, and somehow ended up in the main water park where the huge slide is that goes through a shark tank. We decided Atlantis is a big Disney-Vegas amalgamation that's not really representative of Nassau, so were very happy we didn't stay there...although we did partake of their Ben and Jerry's!


And one last thing we walked through was The Cloisters, which is a French garden and cloister and apparently wide open to the public, if you ignore the No Trespassing sign, which we did.


Another couple walked in with a tour guide, so we thought we were going to get kicked out or something, but the guide actually offered to take a picture of us...probably for the police.


Very pretty place!


So, back home to reality, work, and school - boo. We did get to keep Drew a few more days before he goes back to Auburn, so that's been nice. He's working on something called the Game of Life, which is apparently a game you play online or on your phone, but he wants to make a real one. It involves drilling 100 holes in a piece of plywood and putting LED lights in there that light up in certain ways. This is just after drilling...


And this is the soldering he's done so far on the wires - very impressive!


Those electrical engineering classes are already paying off! And now I'm off to work on my Mardi Gras dress today. Hope you had a great New Year, and remember to live like you're dying, to borrow a phrase from Tim McGraw!